Spirit Squads Wrap-up Nationals with Strong Finishes (Jan. 18, 2009)More than 3,000 of the country’s top college cheerleaders, dancers and mascots competed at this year's UCA/UDA Collegiate National Cheer and Dance championship held in Orlando at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex.

The event was supported by over 6,000 family members and friends. Spirit squad cheerleading and dance teams from 43 states and 152 universities and colleges participated in the competition. The LSU cheerleaders and Tiger Girls finished among the best with a strong 5th place finish in Division 1A cheer and 2nd and 6th place finishes in Division 1A hip hop and jazz. This is the highest among all teams combined cheer and dance performances.

You must be well rounded. Motions, tumbling and co-ed stunts are all important. If you do not have co-ed stunt experience it is imperative to get experience prior to tryouts. Local cheer gyms and college squads are good resources for private stunt lessons. Our gold squad members typically have full up stunts, rewinds and handspring up stunts. Purple squad members have basic stunts such as extensions, liberties, walk-in stunts as well as toss stunts. Being able to stunt with several people and not just one person is also a benefit. When we are choosing our team, we consider who easy to work with and can be used with different partners.

As for tumbling, standing back tucks and standing back handspring tucks are the norm for our squad. Running tumbling ranges. Most girls have layouts and fulls and our guys range with no running tumbling to fulls. Both girls and guys have a first round motion cut so it is important to also have good collegiate style motions. Tumbling is usually the key factor in the first cut along with motions. Do not spend time on jumps as we do not use them.

In addition, if you do not cheer on a high school squad and you are on a competitive team only, please consider getting a private coach to assist you in learning “game day” cheerleading. Being talented is important but you must also know how to “lead a crowd” and cheer in front of fans and not just judges. Yelling loud and natural, natural collegiate cheering expressions, sharp motions and good motion placement is all something that you may not work on if only on an all star team.

While we do not have a weight or height restriction, our girls range in size from 95 pounds to 125 pounds and 4’11 to 5’3. Our guys range in size from 5’8 to 6’2 and 160 to 206. This is a typical size range and fluctuates from year to year.

Consider attending one of our spring one day clinics. You will gain an inside perspective on our tryout process. It is also a good idea to attend one of our games to see our cheerleaders in action. We try to coordinate games and clinic around the same time so you can attend both. One day clinic dates TBD.